When, for example, a user accesses a Web page that is posted on a network (hereinafter, “page”) by using his/her terminal, the user inputs a uniform resource locator (URL) indicative of the address of the desired page. When, for example, the user hopes to access a particular Web site (hereinafter, “site”), the user inputs a URL that corresponds to the top page of the particular site. The terminal is then navigated to the desired page in accordance with the received URL. From the perspective of smooth job operations, some administrators who manage terminals in an office prevent users in the office from accessing inappropriate sites and inappropriate pages of a site.
A well-known technology enables an administrator to label some sites as prohibited sites and prohibit any access to these prohibited sites, thereby preventing users from reading inappropriate sites (see, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 11-205380). The terminal has the URLs of the prohibited sites. When the terminal receives, from a user, a URL that is identical to a URL of a prohibited site, access to the site that corresponds to the received URL is prohibited. The terminal thus prevents the user from reading the site.
As described above, when a received URL is identical to the URL of a prohibited site, access to the site that corresponds to the received URL is prohibited to prevent the user from reading the site. This means that the user does not know the reason for difficulty in reading contents of the site or the page that corresponds to the input URL.
The user does not know the reason is, for example, the site or the page that corresponds to the input URL is the URL of a prohibited site or a prohibited page or that the user inputs an incorrect URL that accidentally identical to a URL of a prohibited site or a prohibited page.
Because the user does not know the reason for difficulty in reading contents of the site or the page that corresponds to the input URL, the user may repeatedly try to access the prohibited site or a limited access site.